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P%'J9 



FRONTIER BALLADS 



Also by Mr. Hanson 



With Sully Into the Sioux Lands 

Illustrated by John W. Norton. 

Crown 8vo $1.50 

The Conquest of the Missouri 

Profusely Illustrated. Third edition. 
Large 8vo Net $2.00 



A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers 



gy JO>StPH MILLS llAN>SON 




With Pictures in Color 

and Other Drawings by 

Maynard Dixon 



CHICAGO 

A.C.M^GLURG®C9 

1310 






COPYRIGHT 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1910 

Published October 15, 1910 



CliifaubliBlirra'^rtoa 



iCLA2737:i;3 



DEDICATED TO MY WIFE 
FRANCES LEE HANSON 



CONTENTS 

SOLDIER SONGS Page 

Dakota Militia 15 

The Girl of the Yankton Stockade 18 

The Ballad of Sergeant Ross 21 

The Springfield Calibre Fifty 25 

A Garrison Christmas ....... 28 

Troop Horses . . . . . . . . 31 

A Khaki Kick 35 

Sergeant Noonan Explains ...... 38 

Laramie Trail ......*.. 40 

PRAIRIE SONGS 

The Call of the Wind 45 

The Fur Traders ........ 46 

Cowboy Song 52 

Christmas Eve at Kimball ...... 54 

A Lament 58 

Jesus Garcia . . . . . . . . .60 

A Christmas Letter ........ 66 

The Coyoteville Peace Meeting ..... 69 

The Song of the Winchester 71 

Prairie Fire ......... 73 

RIVER SONGS 

The Missouri 77 

The Old Carry 81 

Jake Dale 83 

The Engineer of the "Golden Hind" .... 87 

The "Pauline" 89 

Afterglow 92 



N 



MY CREED 

OW, this is the simple, living faith of a humble heart and mind, 
Drunk up from the storm-brewed Western streams, breathed in 

with the priurie wind. 
My paints are crude and my pictures rude, but if some worth 

they show 
Which those may see who have thoughts as free, the rest may 

let them go. 

I hold that the things which make earth good may work most 

harm in use 
If the wit of men heed not the line 'twixt temperance and abuse. 
For speech or mood, or drink or food may be a curse at will. 
Though, rightly weighed, they only aid the cup of life to fill. 

I hold that the silent sea and plain, the mountain, wood, and 

down, 
Are better haunts for the feet of men than the streets of the 

roaring town. 
And that those who tread for the price of bread in the thronging 

hives of toil 
Will stronger grow with the more they know of the kiss of the 

virgin soil. 

I hold that our sons should learn to love, not gods of gold and 

greed. 
But the virile men of brain and brawn who served our country's 

need. 
And should more delight in a clean-cut fight, stout blade and 

courage whole, 
Thatf the morbid skill of a critic's drill in the core of a sin-sick 
I soul. 

\ _ 



Three stars that shine on the trail of life can make man's path- 
way bright, 

And one is the strength of the living God, that stands in his 
heart upright, 

And one is a noble woman's love, on which his heart may lean, 

And one is the sight of his country's f^ag, to keep his courage 
keen. 

Who knows the balm of the summer's calm or the chords of the 

blizzard's hymn 
And finds not God in blast and breeze, his sense is strangely dim. 
For he whose ear is attuned can hear the very planets sing 
That the soul of man, by a God-wrought plan, is the heir of 

creation's King. 

Who feels the joy of the golden days with her who shares his 

mood 
In the sun-washed wastes of the prairie hills or the breaks of 

the tangled wood ; 
Who has won the fate of a steel-true mate, real comrade, friend 

and wife. 
He tastes the kiss of Elysian bliss in instant, earthly life. 

Who sees the gleam of the Stars and Stripes, on land or sea 

displayed, 
Atilt in the reek of the battle-smoke or aloft o'er the marts of 

trade — 
Unless his veins are the sluggish drains for the blood of a craven 

race — 
He will gain new life for a better strife, whatever the odds he 

face. 

So that is the rede and the homely creed of one who has spelled 

it forth 
In the rivers' sweep and the splendors deep of the stars of the 

hardy North ; 
To some, I ween, it may seem but mean; too short, too blunt, 

too plain. 
But if those I touch who have felt as much, it will not have been 

in vain. 

12 



I 
SOLDIER SONGS 



N 



I 

SOLDIER SONGS 

DAKOTA MILITIA 
(1862) 

O "scare-heads" in big city papers, 
No "puffs" in Department reports, 

No pictures by "special staff artists" 
Of assaults on impregnable forts; 

We are far from the war-vexed Potomac, 
Our fights are too small to make news ; 

We are merely Dakota militia. 

Patrolling the frontier for Sioux. 

Three hundred-odd "empire builders," 

Gathered in from three hundred-odd claims, 

Far scattered across the wide prairies 

From Pierre to the mouth of the James. 

Perhaps they seemed little or nothing. 
Our losses, our toil, and our pain, 

The rush of the war ponies, tearing 

Through cornfields and yellowing grain ; 

The whoop of the hostile at midnight, 
The glare of the flaming log shacks, 

A beacon of hate and destruction 

As we fled, with the foe at our backs ; 

Our women and young driven, weeping, 

Exhausted, half-naked, afraid, 
To the refugee huts of Vermillion 

Or the sun-smitten Yankton stockade. 

15 



Frontier Ballads 

Small things to a Nation embattled, 

But great to the pioneer band 
Who are blazing the roads of the future 

Through the wastes of a wilderness land. 

We plod past the desolate coulees 

In the sweltering afternoon heat. 
While the far ridges shine in a waving blue line 

Where the earth and the brazen sky meet. 

No sound save the hoofs of the column 

As they swish through the dry prairie grass, 

No life anywhere save a hawk, high in air, 
Gazing down as we wearily pass. 

There is never a foe we may grapple 

In the heat of a steel-clashing fray. 
For the quarry we hunt is a shadow in front 

That flits, and comes never to bay ; 

A feather of smoke to the zenith. 

The print of a hoof in the sod, 
A shot from the grass where the far flankers pass 

Sending one more poor comrade to God. 

Would we rest when the day's work is over 
And the stars twinkle out in the sky? 

There is double patrol round the lean water-hole 
And the picketed horses hard by. 

Breast-down in the rain-rutted gully. 

With muskets clutched close in our hands. 

The hours of night drag their heavy-winged flight 
Like Eternity's slow falling sands. 

While the Great Dipper, pinned to the Pole Star, 
Swings low in the dome of the North 

And, faint through the dark, sounds the prairie wolf's bark 
Or a snake from the weeds rustles forth. 

16 



OLDIER SONGS 

And the darkness that chokes like a vapor 

Is thronged with the visions which come 

Of children and wife and the dear things of life 
That peopled the lost cabin home. 

Till the East flushes red with the morning 

And the dawn-wind springs fresh o'er the plain, 

And the reveille's note from the bugle's clear throat 
Calls us up to our labors again. 

We were not in the fight at Antietam, 

We never have seen Wilson's Creek, 
We were guiding our trains over Iowa's plains 

While the shells at Manassas fell thick. 

But we're waging a war for a new land 

As the East wages war for the old, 
That the mountains and plains of the red man's domains 

May be brought to Columbia's fold, 

And though only a squad of militia 

That the armies back East never knew. 

We are playing a game which is largely the same 
With the truculent, turbulent Sioux. 



17 



Frontier ballads 




THE GIRL OF THE YANKTON STOCKADE 



ZES, it's pretty, this town. And it's always been so; 

L We pioneers picked it for beauty, you know. 

See the far-rolling bluffs ; mark the trees, how they hide 
All its streets, and, beyond, the Missouri, bank-wide, 
Swinging dov^^n through the bottoms. Up here on the height 
Is the college. Eh, sightly location? You're right! 

It has grown, you m.ay guess, since I've been here; but still 
It is forty-five years since I looked from this hill 
One morning, and saw in the stockade down there 
Our women and children all gathered at prayer. 
While we, their defenders, with muskets in rest 
Lay waiting the Sioux coming out of the West. 

18 



SOLDIER SONG! 

They had swept Minnesota with bullet and brand 

Till her borders lay waste as a desert of sand, 

When we in Dakota awakened to find 

That the red flood had risen and left us behind. 

Then we rallied to fight them, — Sioux, Sissetons, all 

Who had ravaged unchecked to the gates of Saint Paul. 

Is it strange, do you think, that the women took fright 
That morning, and prayed; that men, even, turned white 
When over the ridge where the college now looms 
We caught the first glitter of lances and plumes 
And heard the dull trample of hoofs drawing nigh, 
Like the rumble of thunder low down in the sky? 

Such sounds wrench the nerves when there's little to see ; 
It seemed madness to stay, it was ruin to flee. 
But, handsome and fearless as Anthony Wayne, 
Our captain, Frank Ziebach, kept hold on the rein, 
Like a bugle his voice made us stiffen and thrill — 
"Stand steady, boys, steady! And fire to kill!" 

So the most of us stayed. But when dangers begin 
You will always find some who are yellow within. 
We had a few such, who concluded to steer 
For the wagon-train, parked in the centre and rear. 
They didn't stay long! But you've heard, I dare say. 
Of the girl who discouraged their running away. 

What, no? Never heard of Miss Edgar? Why, sir, 

Dakota went wild with the praises of her! 

As sweet as a hollyhock, slender and tall, 

And brave as the sturdiest man of us all. 

By George, sir, a heroine, that's what she made. 

When her spirit blazed out in the Yankton stockade ! 

The women were sobbing, for every one knew 

She must blow out her brains if the redskins broke through, 

When into their midst, fairly gasping with fright. 

Came the panic-struck hounds who had fled from the fight. 

They trampled the weak in their blind, brutal stride, 

Made straight for the wagons and vanished inside. 

19 



Frontier Ballads 

Then up rose Miss Edgar in anger and haste 
And grasped the revolver that hung at her waist; 
She walked to the wagon which nearest her lay, 
She wrenched at the back-flap and tore it away, 
Then aiming her gun at the fellow beneath 
She held it point-blank to his chattering teeth. 

"Go back to your duty," she cried, "with the men! 
Go back, or you'll never see sunrise again! 
Do you think, because only the women are here, 
You can skulk behind skirts with your dastardly fear? 
Get out on the ground. Take your gun. About, face ! 
And don't look around till you're back in your place !" 

Well, he minded ; what's more, all the others did, too. 
That girl cleared the camp of the whole scurvy crew, 
For a pistol-point, hovering under his nose. 
Was an argument none of them cared to oppose. 
Yet so modest she was that she colored with shame 
When the boys on the line began cheering her name ! 

Well, that's all; just an echo of old border strife 

When the sights on your gun were the guide-posts of life. 

Harsh times breed strong souls, by eternal decree. 

Who can breast them and win— but it's always struck me 

That the Lord did an extra good job when He made 

Miss Edgar, the girl of the Yankton stockade. 



20 







1 



SOLDIER 



SONGS 




THE BALLAD OF SERGEANT ROSS 



T 



HE south wind's up at the break of dawn 
From the dun Missouri's breast, 

It has tossed the grass of the Council Hill 
And wakened the flames on its crest ; 

The flames of the sentry fires bright, 

Ablaze on the prairies pale, 
Where sixty men of the Frontier Corps 

Are guarding the Government Trail. 

A rattle of hoofs from the northern hills, 
A steed with a sweat-wrung hide 

And Olaf Draim, of the Peska Claim, 
Swings off at the captain's side. 

A limb of the sturdy Swedes is he. 

Marauders in days of old. 
But the swart of his face is stricken white 

And the grip of his hand is cold. 

21 



FRONTIER Ballads 

"Now, hark ye, men of the Frontier Corps, 

I ride from the Beaver Creek, 
Where I saw a sight at the grim midnight 

That might turn a strong man weak. 

"Chief Black Bear's out from the Crow Creek lands, 
The buzzards his track have showed ; 

Last eve he pillaged at Old Fort James, 
To-day on the Firesteel road, 

"And Corporal Stowe, of the Frontier Corps, 

On furlough to reap his grain, 
At the Peska stage-house lieth dead 

With his wife and his children twain." 

Then up and spoke First Sergeant Ross, 
Who had bunked with Corporal Stowe : 

"By the glory of God, they shall pay in blood 
The debt of that dastard blow! 

"Ye know the path to the Crow Creek lands; 

It is sown with this spawn of hell. 
And there's deep ravine and there's plum-hedge green 

To shelter a foeman well. 

"Now, who of my comrades mounts with me 
For a murdered mess-mate's wrong. 

That the Sioux who rides with those scalps at his side 
May swing from a hempen thong?" 

Of three-score men there were only ten 
Would gird for that chase of death. 

Quoth Ross: "As ye please. For the cur, his fleas. 
But men for the rifle's breath." 

They have tightened cinches and passed the lines 
Ere the lowland mists have flown ; 

The men are astride of the squadron's best, 
And Ross, of the Captain's roan. 

22 



SOLDIER SON 



They ride till the crickets have sought the shade ; 

They ride till the sun-motes glance ; 
And they have espied on a far hillside 

The whirl of the Sioux scalp-dance. 

Then it's up past the smouldering stage-house barn 

And out by the well-curb's marge ; 
The Sioux are a-leap for the tether-ropes : — 

"Revolvers! Guide centre! Charge!" 

The Sioux, they flee like a wild wolf-pack 
At the flick of the shot-tossed sod, 

Six braves have lurched to the fore fetlocks 
And two of the Sergeant's squad. 

But Ross has tightened his sabre-belt 

And given the roan his head, 
And set his pace for a single chase, 

A furlong's length ahead. 

He has set his pace for the chief. Black Bear, 
Who shrinks from a strong man's strife 

But flaunts in the air the long, brown hair 
Of the scalp of the Corporal's wife. 

The eight, they follow like swirled snow-spume, 

A-drive o'er an ice-bound bar, 
But the redskin's track is the dim cloud-wrack 

That streams in the sky afar. 

They ride till the hearts of their steeds are dead 
And they gallop with lolling tongues. 

And the tramp of their feet is a rhythmic beat 
To the sob of their panting lungs. 

And two are down in a prairie draw 
And three on a chalk-stone ledge. 

And three have won to the Bon Homme Run 
And stuck in the marsh-land sedge. 

23 



FRONTIER BALLADS 

But Black Bear's horse still holds the course, 
Though her breath is a thick-drawn moan, 

And a length behind is the straining stride 
Of the Captain's steel-limbed roan. 

The Sergeant rides with a loose-thrown rein, 

Nor sabre nor shoot will he 
Till the pony has pitched at a gopher mound 

And flung her rider free; 

And Ross has wrenched the knife from his hand 

And smitten him to the ground : — 
"Did ye think to win to the Bijou Hills, 

Ye whelp of a Blackfoot hound? 

*T had riddled your carcass this six miles back 

And left ye to rot on the plain. 
Had the blood of the slaughtered not called on me 

That I hail ye to Peska again, 

"To point this lesson to all your tribe, 
That the price of a white man's soul 

No longer goes, in the mart of death, 
Unpaid to its last dark goal. 

"Wherefore, that your tribesmen may see and feel 

The cost of a white man's wrong. 
And to sweeten the rest of my mess-mate's kin, 

Ye shall swing from a hempen thong." 

He has slung the chief to the saddle-bow. 

Triced up in his own raw-hide, 
And has borne him back to the stage-house yard. 

All bleak on the greerr hillside. 

And they swung him at dawn from a scaffold stout. 

As a warning to all his kind. 
To fatten the birds and to scare the herds 

And to sport with the prairie wind. 

24 



s o 



D I E R 



O N G 




THE SPRINGFIELD CALIBRE FIFTY 

WAS wrought of walnut blocks and rolled rod steel, 

I was hammered, lathed, and mandrelled> stock and plate, 

I was gauged and tested, bayonet to heel, 
Then shipped for service, twenty in a crate. 



For I was the calibre fifty. 

Hi! — dough-boys, you haven't forgot 
The click of my tumblers shifty 

And the kick of the butt when I shot? 
I was nothing too light on your shoulder, 

You were glad when you stacked me o' nights, 
But I'd drill an Apach' 
From the thousand-yard scratch 
If you'd only hold straight on the sights — old sights! 
My trusty old Buffington sights! 

25 



Frontier ballads 

In oil-soaked chests at Watervliet I've laid, 

I have rusted in Vancouver through the rains, 

I have scorched on Fort Mohave's baked parade, 
And caked with sand at Sedgwick on the plains. 

For I led every march on the border, 

And I taught every rookie to fight; 
Though he'd curse me in close marching order. 

Lord! — he'd hug me on picket at night 
As he thought of the herd-guard at Buford 

When Sitting Bull swooped within reach, 
And 'twas every man's life, 
It was bullet and knife 
Had my cartridges jammed in the breech — lock breech! 
In my solid block, hammer-lock breech! 

It was I who lashed the Modocs from their lair 

With Wheaton in the Tule Lava Bed ; 
It was I who drove Chief Joseph to despair 

When I streaked the slopes of Bear Paw with his dead. 

For I was a proof most impressive — 

The Springfield the infantry bore — 
To redskins with spirits aggressive 

That peace is more healthful than war; 
I showed them on Musselshell River 

And again, yet more plain, at Slim Butte ; 
They were plucky as sin 
But they had to come in 
When they found how the Springfield could shoot — 

shoot, shoot! 
How my blue-bottle barrel could shoot! 

I was Vengeance when, with Miles through trackless snow, 
The "fighting Fifth" took toll for Custer's fall; 

I was Justice when we flayed Geronimo ; 

I was Mercy to the famished horde of Gall. 



26 



Soldier Songs 

Oh, I was slow-plodding and steady ; 

Not hot, like the carbine, to raid, 
But when he found trouble too ready 

He was glad of his big brother's aid; 
For sometimes he'd scatter the outposts, 

Then wait, if the foe proved too stout, 
Till, at "Front into line!" 
It was business of mine 
While the infantry volleyed the rout — rout, rout ! 
While I cleared out the village in rout ! 

But those years have sped ; long silent are my lips ; 

Now my sturdy grandson rules the host I knew. 
And a drab-clad army trusts his five-shell clips 

As of old the blue-clad held my one shot true. 

Still, my dotage takes solace of glory 

From my turbulent youth and its scenes. 
As vivid with valorous story 

As the isles of the far Philippines. 
Though the steel-jacket smokeless is sovereign 
And I'm proud of my name on his crest. 
It was black smoke and lead 
When the skirmish lines spread 
With the Springfield that conquered the West — West, 

West ! 
With the hard-fighting arm of the West ! 



27 



Frontier Ballads 




N 



A GARRISON CHRISTMAS 

OW, all you homesick rookies who are blue on Christmas Day, 
Though bunked in pleasant barracks, come listen to my lay ! 
When you're stationed snug at Flagler, Leavenworth, or Hamp- 
ton Roads, 
Where the postman three times daily brings your Christmas 

cheer in loads. 
What ground have you for kicking? You would glorify your fate 
If you'd been in old Fort Buford on Christmas, '68 ! 

Just a bunch of squatty cabins built of cottonwoods and clay 
With roofs of sod and sedge-grass and v,^indows stuffed with hay, 
And when the winter blizzards came howling overhead 
And we couldn't reach the timber, we burned our bunks, instead. 
While, camped around the gullies, lay five hundred Sioux in wait; 
That's how we stood at Buford on Christmas, '68 ! 

28 



SOLDIER SON 



We were out beyond the border a thousand miles or more, 

A wilderness of drifting snows behind us and before ; 

Just a bunch of U. S. doughboys, hollow-eyed from march and 

fight, 
For you bet we all kept busy with Sitting Bull in sight, 
And our old buzz-saw he'd captured never Jet us sleep too late 
When he used it as a war-drum around Christmas, '68 ! 

I remember well that morning, it was twenty-four below. 
With a bright sun striking crystals from the endless fields of 

snow. 
We had finished with our breakfast of beans and bacon-fat. 
When someone cried, "Look yonder, along the bluffs! What's 

that?" 
We looked," then cheered like demons. The mail-guard, sure as 

fate! 
A welcome sight, I tell you, on Christmas, '68! 

They ploughed in through the snow-drifts across the barrack- 
yard. 

Their fur caps rimmed with hoar-frost, their horses breathing 
hard. 

They bore orders from headquarters, but we soldiers bade them 
hail 

Because they'd brought us, also, our sacks of Christmas mail. 

We had never hoped till springtime to have that precious freight ; 

Was it strange it raised our spirits on Christmas, '68? 

We crowded in a corner around old Sergeant "Jack " — 
A Santa Claus in chevrons with a mail-bag for his pack — 
And with horse-play, yells, and laughter we greeted every flight 
As he called the names and fired them their bundles left and right. 
For some there came no tokens, but they kept their faces straight 
And smiled at others' fortune on Christmas, '68. 

"Tom Flint!" A woollen muffler from his sister back in Maine. 
"James Bruce!" His father'd sent him a silver watch and chain. 
"Hans Goetz!" A flute and song-book from the far-off Baltic's 



shore. 



29 



FRONTIER Ballads 

"George Kent!" A velvet album from his folks in Baltimore. 
And how we cheered the pictures from the girls in every State 
To their sweethearts in the army, on Christmas, '68! 

"Fred Gray!" A sudden silence fell on that noisy place. 
Poor Fred lay in the foot-hills with the snow above his face. 
But his bunkie loosed the package of its wrappings, one by one — 
'Twas a Bible from his mother, with a blessing for her son. 
And the hardest heart was softened as we thought of our dead 

mate 
And that lonely, stricken mother on Christmas, '68. 

But the Sergeant raised the shadow as he shouted, "Jerry Clegg!" 

In hospital was Jerry with a bullet through his leg — 

The gayest lad in Buford — and we plunged out through the drifts 

To take his package to him, forgetting our own gifts. 

'Twas a green silk vest from Dublin, and, bedad, it sure was 

great 
To hear old Jerry chuckle on Christmas, '68 ! 

Thus it went, with joke and banter— what a romping time we 

had! 
The redskins in the coulees must have thought we'd gone clean 

mad. 
For they started popping bullets at the sentinels on guard 
And we had to stop our nonsense, and sortie good and hard. 
But that was daily routine — always got it, soon or late — 
If we hadn't, we'd felt lonely on Christmas, '68. 

So I'm here to tell you rookies who are kicking on your lot 
That you don't know service hardship as we got it, served up hot, 
For the Philippines are easy and Hawaii is a snap 
When compared to fighting Injins over all the Western map. 
And, next time you start to growling when your mail's an hour 

late. 
Just recall the boys at Buford, on Christmas, '68! 



30 



gj^:?^'*^-- 




^A<^>v*<-Ja^^ov> - IvpW^-' 



s o 



D I 



R 



O N 




^^.. 



TROOP HORSES 



o 



|H, you hear a lot these days 
Of the automatic ways 

That the experts have devised for spillin' gore; 
Cycle squadrons, motor vans. 
All fixed up on modern plans 

For a rapid transit, quick installment war. 

Now, that sort of thing may go 
When you have a thoughtful foe 

Who will stick to graded roads with all his forces, 
But when we were boys in blue. 
Playing cross-tag with the Sioux, 

We were satisfied to get along on horses. 

31 



Frontier Ballads 

Oh, the horses, sleek and stout 

When the squadrons started out, 
How they pranced along the column as the bugles blew the 
"Trot!" 

They might weaken and go lame. 

But they'd never quit the game, 
And they'd bring us back in safety if they weren't left to rot. 

When there came a sudden tack 

In the travois' dusty track 
And we knew the reds were headin' for the timber and the rocks, 

With the infantry and trains 

Thirty miles back on the plains, 
Then the horses were the boys that got the knocks. 

Oh, the horses, roan and bay. 

Without either corn or hay. 
But a little mess o' dirty oats that wouldn't feed a colt; 

Who could blame 'em if they'd bite 

Through the picket-ropes at night? 
When a man or horse is hungry, ain't he bound to try and bolt? 

When the trail got light and thin 

And the ridges walled us in. 
And the flankers had to scramble with their toes and finger-nails. 

While the wind across the peaks 

Whipped the snow against our cheeks. 
Then the horses had to suffer for the badness of the trails. 

Oh, the horses, lean and lank. 

With the "U. S." on their flank 
And a hundred-weight of trumpery a-dangle all around ; 

How they sweated, side by side. 

When the stone!> began to slide 
And they couldn't find a footing or an inch of solid ground. 

But they'd stand the racket right 
Till the redskins turned to fight 
And up among the fallen pines we heard their rifles crack; 

32 



Soldier Songs 

Hi! — the three-year vet'rans stormed 
While the skirmish lines were formed 
At the snub-nosed little carbines that they couldn't fire back! 

And the horses, standing there 

With their noses in the air — 
How they kicked and raised the devil down among the tangled 
trees ! 

They didn't mind the shooting, 

But they'd try to go a-scooting 
When they got a whiff of redskin on the chilly mountain breeze. 

Still, I've not a word of blame 
For those horses, just the same ; 

A yelping Injun, daubed with clay, he isn't nice to see. 
And I ain't forgot the day 
When my long-legg'd Texas bay 

Wasn't scared enough of Injuns not to save my life for me. 

I was lyin' snug and low 

In a hollow full of snow 
When the hostiles flanked the squadron from a wooded ridge 
near by. 

And, of course, the boys, at that. 

Sought a cooler place to chat. 
But they didn't know they'd left me with a bullet in my thigh ! 

But the redskins understood — 

Bet your life they always would ! — 
And they came a-lopin' downward for this short-hair scalp of 
mine. 

While I wondered how I'd be 

"Soldier a la fricassee," 
For I didn't know my Texan hadn't bolted with the line, 

Till I heard a crunchin' sound, 
And when I looked around. 
With the reins against his ankles, there that blaze-face rascal 
stood ! 

33 



FRONTIER Ballads 



He was shiverin' with fright. 
But he hadn't moved a mite, 
For he'd never learned to travel till I told him that he should. 

And he stayed, that Texan did. 
Till I'd crawled and rolled and slid 

Down beside him in the hollow and the stirrup-strap could find, 
And I somehow reached the saddle 
And hung on — I couldn't straddle — 

While he galloped for the squadron with the Sioux strung out 
behind. 

Oh, the horses from the range, 

They've got hearts; it isn't strange 
If they raise a little Hades when the drill gets hot and fast; 

But I'd like to see a chart 

Of the automobile cart 
That will save a man on purpose when the shots are singin' past. 

Now, the boys in blue, you bet. 

Earn whatever praise they get. 
But they're not the only ones who never lag. 

For the good old Yankee horses. 

They are always with the forces 
When the battle-smoke is curling round the flag! 

And I don't believe the men 

Who make drawings with a pen 
Can ever build a thing of cranks and wheels 

That will starve and work and fight. 

Summer, winter, day or night. 
Like that same old, game old horse that thinks and feels. 



34 



O L D I E R 



O N 




A KHAKI KICK 



B 



ACK there in Washington, people may stare, 
Easy-chair officers sputter and swear, 
Bureaucrats legislate — what do we care? 
Down in the ranks we don't follow the styles; 
Here's health to the General, Nelson A. Miles! 



I've been readin' in the papers and I'm feelin' pretty mad 
At the shabby sort of treatment that a game old soldier's had. 
And the soldier I'm referrin' to, who's so surprisin' game. 
Is Miles, Lieutenant General — I guess you've heard the name? 



Now, the pointers that a twelve-year duty sergeant hasn't got 
On the secrets of the Service, are a quite extensive lot ; 
But he may make observations, while a-wearin' out his shoes. 
Not just in strict acordance with the War Department's views. 



35 



FRONTIER BALLADS 

I've seen some bits of service of a somewhat stirrin' brand 
When the West was callin' lusty for a civilizin' hand, 
And, myself, I've had some practice in that missionary work 
With the men who did the business, from the buttes to Al- 
buquerq'. 

They've sent some stunnin' strategists, so history records. 
To show the noble red man how the Nation loves its wards. 
And some was politicians, and some was soft of heart. 
And some was full of ginger, but couldn't make a start. 

But the man who knew his business as the king-bird knows the 

hawk; 
Who started with the rifle and finished with the talk; 
Who wouldn't stop for bluffin' when he once got started right, 
Was him I'm tellin' you about — you bet he came to fight! 

I know he's no West Pointer — I've a notion, what is more. 
That it isn't only Pointers who may know the game of war. 
And if he's a little partial to the medals on his chest 
He's got a darned good right to be ; he earned 'em in the West. 

For I've follered him in winter through those blamed Montana 

snows 
When the hills was stiff as granite and the very air was froze, 
And seen him ridin' out in front to lead the double-quick 
When the lines went into action on the banks of Rosebud Creek. 

I've lurched across the Painted Plains, my temples like to burst. 
And seen men suckin' out their veins to quench their burnin' 

thirst, 
With the sky a blazin' furnace and the earth a bakin' sea, 
And he was there beside us — and was just as dry as we. 

Oh, hang these army politics, when jealousy and spite 

Can rob a veteran of his praise, his dearest, hard-earned right! 

There's just one kind of officer enlisted men can like — 

The kind who keeps his bearings when the shots begin to strike. 

36 



SOLDIER SONGS 

And that's the kind that Miles has been; he never ducked or 

flinched ; 
He was always in the mix-up when the lines of battle clinched ; 
He's whipped out Rebs and redskins and he's made some Dagos 

dance, 
And he's good for lots more fightin' if he ever gets the chance. 
And here's the moral to this talk — I'll ask no price, but thanks : 
Miles may not have a stand-in, but he's solid with the ranks! 

Back there in Washington, people may stare. 
Easy-chair officers sputter and swear, 
Bureaucrats legislate — what do we care? 
Down in the ranks we don't follow the styles ; 
Here's a health to the General, Nelson A. Miles! 



37 



FRONTIER Ballads 




J 



SERGEANT NOONAN EXPLAINS 

AMES Noonan, private, 'B' Troop, made sergeant on the field 
For leading charge on hostiles, compelling them to yield." 
That's the way the record reads, but, sure, it isn't so ; 
Ye mind, I'm Sergeant Noonan and I guess I ought to know! 



I'll tell ye how it happened, dead straight, without no frills. 
We'd tracked a Cheyenne war-band clean through the Black- 
snake Hills, 
Till, on the march one mornin', they jumped us from the right, 
Three hundred bucks in war-paint, well armed and full of fight. 



38 



SOLDIER SONGS 

We'd fifty men in column — no time to close a rank — 
We yanked our horses sideways and fired by the flank, 
But, though we volleyed through 'em and dropped the foremost 

ones, 
The rest came on like devils, right up against our guns. 

Now half our boys were rookies who'd never smelt a fight; 
The yappin' Cheyenne war-whoop just turned 'em blue with 

fright. 
They started breakin' column and first we veterans knew. 
The troop had gone to blazes and let the redskins through. 

The sergeants clubbed their carbines, the Captain prayed and 

swore ; 
It didn't stop the rookies ; they wouldn't stand for more. 
Then a bullet caught my mustang and ploughed him underneath 
And he bolted toward the hostiles with the bit between his teeth. 

Thinks I, "Here's good-bye, Jimmie; but I'll make these heathen 

grunt," 
So I grabbed my Colt and opened as we sailed into their front. 
But they cleared a passage for me and I couldn't trust my eyes 
When their outfit broke and scattered, scootin' back across the 

rise. 

Then I turned and, there behind me, all strung out along my trail. 
Came the boys of "B" Troop, ridin' like a sizzin' comet's tail. 
With their horses at the gallop and revolvers poppin' gay 
For they thought I'd led a rally when my mustang ran away! 

So that's the way it happened, in brief, without no frills, 
That day the Cheyennes jumped us among the Blacksnake Hills, 
Which is why I claim the chevrons that I'm sportin' on my sleeve 
Was won by my old mustang and dead against my leave. 



39 



FRONTIER Ballads 



A 



LARAMIE TRAIL 

CROSS the crests of the naked hills, 

Smooth-swept by the winds of God, 
It cleaves its way like a shaft of gray, 

Close-bound by the prairie sod. 
It stretches flat from the sluggish Platte 

To the lands of forest shade ; 
The clean trail, the lean trail, 

The trail the troopers made. 

It draws aside with a wary curve 

From the lurking, dark ravine. 
It launches fair as a lance in air 

O'er the raw-ribbed ridge between: 
With never a wait it plunges straight 

Through river or reed-grown brook; 
The deep trail, the steep trail. 

The trail the squadrons took. 

They carved it well, those men of old, 

Stern lords of the border war, 
They wrought it out with their sabres stout 

And marked it with their gore. 
They made it stand as an iron band 

Along the wild frontier; 
The strong trail, the long trial. 

The trail of force and fear. 

For the stirring note of the bugle's throat 

Ye may hark to-day in vain, 
For the track is scarred by the gang-plow's shard 

And. gulfed in the growing grain. 
But wait to-night for the moonrise white ; 

Perchance ye may see them tread 
The lost trail, the ghost trail, 

The trail of the gallant dead. 



40 



f^^ ' ^ ' M."", ^ ' M 







SOLDIER SQNC 

'Twixt cloud and cloud o'er the pallid moon 

From the nether dark they glide 
And the grasses sigh as they rustle by 

Their phantom steeds astride. 
By four and four as they rode of yore 

And well they know the way; 
The dim trail, the grim trail, 

The trail of toil and fray. 

With tattered guidons spectral thin 

Above their swaying ranks, 
With carbines swung and sabres slung 

And the gray dust on their flanks. 
They march again as they marched it then 

When the red men dogged their track, 
The gloom trail, the doom trail, 

The trail they came not back. 

They pass, like a flutter of drifting fog. 

As the hostile tribes have passed, 
As the wild-wing'd birds and the bison herds 

And the unfenced prairies vast. 
And those who gain by their strife and pain 

Forget, in the land they won, 
The red trail, the dead trail. 

The trail of duty done. 

But to him who loves heroic deeds 

The far-flung path still bides, 
The bullet sings and the war-whoop rings 

And the stalwart trooper rides. 
For they were the sort from Snelling Fort 

Who traveled fearlessly 
The bold trail, the old trail. 

The trail to Laramie. 



41 



II 
PRAIRIE SONGS 



T 



II 
PRAIRIE SONGS 

THE CALL OF THE WIND 

HE wind comes rollicking out of the West 

(Oh, wind of the West, so free !) 
With the scent of the plains on its heaving breast. 

(Oh, plains that I no more see!) 
It cries through the smoky and roaring town 
Of the tossing grass and the hillsides brown 
Where the cattle graze as the sun goes down. 
(Oh, sun on the prairie sea!) 

And this is the song that the West wind sings ; 

(Oh, call of the wind, have done!) 
That the worth of life is the joy it brings. 

(Oh, joy that is never won!) 
That the stainless sky and the virgin sod 
Hold richer wealth, of the peace of God, 
Than the streets where the weary toilers plod. 

(Oh, streets that the heart would shun !) 

But, wind of the West, in vain thy voice, 
(Oh, why must the voice be vain?) 
If joy were all. 'twere an easy choice. 

(Oh, choice that is fraught with pain!) 
The road of life is a hard, hard way 
But yet, if we hold to the path, it may 
Lead back to the land of dreams some day. 
(Yes, back to the plains again!) 



45 



FRONTIER BALLADS 




T 



THE FUR TRADERS 

HE moon, on plain and bluff and stream, 
Casts but a faint and fitful gleam, 
For, striving in a ghostly race. 
The clouds that rack across her face 
Now leave her drifting, white and high, 
In some clear lake of purple sky 
And then, like waves with crests upcurled, 
Obscure her radiance from the world. 
Across the wild Missouri's breast 
Which lies in icy armor dressed, 
The north wind howls and moans, 
Wrenching the naked trees that stand 
Like skeletons along the strand, 
To shrill and creaking groans. 
On distant butte and wide coteau 
Is snow and never-ending snow; 
Whirling aloft in spiral clouds, 

46 



RAIRIE SON 



Weaving in misty, crystal shrouds, 

Then floating back to earth again 

To drift across the frozen plain 

In strangely sculptured trough and crest. 

Like some slow ocean's heaving breast. 

Such night is not for mortal kind 

To fare abroad; the bitter wind, 

The restless snows, the frost-locked mold 

Bid living creatures seek their hold 

And leave to Winter's monarch will 

The solitudes of vale and hill. 

The buffalo, whose legions vast 

A few short moons ago have passed 

Adown these bleak hillsides. 

Now graze full many a league away 

Where, through the genial southern day 

The winds of Matagorda Bay 

Caress their shaggy hides. 

The wolves have sought their coverts deep 

In dark ravine and coulee steep, 

Where cedar thickets, dense and warm. 

Afford protection from the storm. 

And every creature of the plains 

Has left his well-beloved domains 

To seek, or near or far, 

A haven where warm-blooded life 

May cower from the dreadful strife 

Of hyperborean war. 

But see, across yon barren swell 

Where wind and snow-rime weave a spell 

Of phantoms o'er the hill. 

What awkward creatures of the night 

Come creeping, snail-like, on the sight, 

Halting and slow, in weary plight 

But ever onward still? 

Their limbs are long and lank and thin. 

Their forms are swathed from foot to chin 

In garments rude of bison skin. 

47 



FRONTIER Ballads 



Upon each broad and stalwart back 

Is strapped a huge and weighty pack, 

Their coarse and ragged hair 

Streams back from brows whose dusky stain 

Is dyed by bHzzard, wind, and rain, 

They are a fearsome pair; 

Lone pilgrims of the coteau vast. 

They seem like cursed souls, outcast 

To roam forever there. 

Yet hark! Adown the cold wind f^ung. 

What voice of merriment gives tongue? 

'Tis human laughter, deep and strong, 

And now, all suddenly, a song 

Rings o'er the prairie lone ! 

A chanson old, whose rythm oft 

Has lingered on the breezes soft 

That kiss the storied Rhone, 

Or floated up from lips of love 

To some dark casement, high above 

The streets of Avignon, 

Where lovely eyes, all maidenly, 

Glance shyly forth, that they may see 

What lover comes to serenade 

Ere drawing back the latticed shade 

To toss a red rose down. 

What fickle fate, what strange mischance 

Has brought this song of sunny France 

To ride upon the blizzard crest 

That mantles o'er the wild Northwest? 

To find its echoes sweet 

In barren butte and stark cliff-side. 

Whose beetling summits override 

The fierce Missouri's murky tide; 

To rouse the scurrying feet 

Of antelope and lean coyote ; 

To hear its last, long, witching note, 

Caught in the hoot-owl's dismal throat, 

Sweep by on pinions fleet. 

48 



RAIRIE SONG 



Full far these errant sons of Gaul 
Have journeyed from the gray sea-wall 
That fronts on fair Marseilles, 
But still the spirit of their race 
Bids them to turn a dauntless face 
On whate'er Fates prevail. 
The storm may drive to bush and den 
The creatures of the field and fen, 
But neither storm nor darksome night 
Nor ice-bound stream nor frowning height 
Can check or turn or put to flight 
These iron-hearted men. 

Across the flats of stinging sands. 

Through thickets, woods, and sere uplands, 

Their weary pathway shows ; 

Toward some far fort of logs and stakes 

Deep hidden in the willow brakes, 

Right onward still it goes 

Persistently, an unblazed track. 

Bent from the cheerless bivouac 

Of some poor, prairie Indian band 

Whose chill and flimsy tepees stand 

Half buried in the snows. 

Yet what of costly merchandise 

That wealth may covet, commerce prize, 

Can these adventurers wring 

From that ill-fed, barbarian horde 

As seems to them a meet reward 

For all the risk and toil and pain 

They've suffered on the winter plain 

Amid their journeying? 

Ah, wealth enough is garnered there, 
Though not of gold or jewels rare. 
To rouse the white man's longing greed 
And send his servants forth with speed 
To lay the treasure bare. 
The trinkets cheap these traders brought 

49 



Frontier Ballads 

The savages have dearly bought, 
Persuaded guilelessly to pay 
A ten times doubled usury 
In furs of beavers and of minks, 
Of silver fox and spotted lynx. 
For all their rich and varied store 
Of peltries, gathered from the shore. 
The wood, the prairie, and the hill 
By trapper's art and hunter's skill, 
The traders' heavy packs now fill. 

A journey far those furs must go 

From these wild fastnesses of snow. 

By travois, pack, and deep bateau ; 

By keel-boat, sloop, and merchantman 

Till half a hemisphere they span. 

Ere they will lie, at last, displayed 

By boulevard and esplanade 

In Europe's buzzing marts of trade. 

These marten skins, so soft and warm. 

May wrap some Russian princess' form 

And shield her from the Arctic storm 

That howls o'er Kroonstadt's bay ; 

That robe, a huge black bear which, dressed. 

May cloak some warrior monarch's breast 

As, gazing o'er the battle crest. 

He sees the foemen's legions pressed 

In panic, from the fray. 

But it is not the destinies 

Which m.ay, perc'nance, beyond the seas. 

Await these rare commodities. 

That chiefly signify, 

Though king and knight and princess fair 

Should leave the coteaus stripped and bare 

Their pride to gratify. 

But this ; that in the storm to-night. 

Through cloudy gloom, through pale moonlight. 

Two men still press along. 

Not hiding, as the wolf and hind, 

50 



R A I R I E SON 



From blinding snow and bitter wind 
Nor, like the Indian, crouching low 
Above a brush-fire's feeble glow 
But, vigorous and strong, 
Hasting their bidden task to close 
Whate'er obstructions interpose 
And parrying Fortune's adverse blows 
Right gaily, with a song. 

Plains of the mighty, virgin West, 
Plains in cold, sterile beauty dressed, 
Your time of fruit draws near! 
Creatures of thicket, vale and shore. 
Tribes of the hills, your reign is o'er. 
The conquerer is here! 
His footprints mark your secret grounds, 
His voice upon your air resounds, 
His name, unto your utmost bounds. 
Is one of strength and fear. 

The magic of his virile powers 

Shall change your desert wastes to bowers. 

Your nakedness to shade ; 

Shall stretch broad, rustling ranks of corn 

Along your stony crests forlorn 

And wheat-fields, dappling in the sun. 

Where your mad autumn fires have run. 

The trails your bison made 

Shall grow beneath his hurrying feet 

To highway broad and village street. 

Along whose grassy sides shall sleep 

Meadows and orchards, fruited deep; 

Homesteads and schools and holy fanes 

To prove that all these fertile plains 

Are turned by God's eternal plan 

To serve the onward march of man, 

Which sweeping down the vale of time 

With gathering strength and hope sublime 

Is never checked nor stayed. 



51 



FRONTIER Ballads 



W 



COWBOY SONG 

E are up in the morning ere dawning of day 
And the grub-wagon's busy and flap-jacks in play, 
While the herd is astir over hillside and swale 
With the night-riders rounding them into the trail. 

Come, take up your cinches 

And shake up your reins; 
Come, wake up your bronco 
And break for the plains ; 
Come, roust those red steers from the long chaparral. 
For the outfit is off for the railroad corral! 



The sun circles upward, the steers as they plod 
Are pounding to powder the hot prairie sod. 
And it seems, as the dust turns you dizzy and sick 
That you'll never reach noon and the cool, shady creek. 

But tie up your kerchief 

And ply up your nag; 
Come, dry up your grumbles 
And try not to lag; 
Come, now for the steers in the long chaparral, 
For we're far on the way to the railroad corral ! 

The afternoon shadows are starting to lean 
When the grub-wagon sticks in a m.arshy ravine 
And the herd scatters further than vision can look, 
For you bet all true punchers will help out the cook! 

So shake out your rawhide 

And snake it up fair; 
Come, break in your bronco 
To taking his share! 
Come, now for the steers in the long chaparral. 
For it's all in the drive to the railroad corral! 



52 



PRAIRIE SONGS 

But the longest of days must reach evening at last, 

When the hills are all climbed and the creeks are all passed, 

And the tired herd droops in the yellowing light ; 

Let them loaf if they will, for the railroad's in sight! 

Come, strap up the saddle 

Whose lap you have felt ; 
So flap up your holster 

And snap up your belt; 
Good-bye to the steers and the long chaparral ; 
There's a town that's a trump by the railroad corral! 



53 



Frontier ballads 



M 



CHRISTMAS EVE AT KIMBALL 

ET a chap the other night, down on Halsted Street, 
Holdin' up Mike Kelley's bar, sippin' mint an' rye; 

I'd just hit the Stock Yards with a cattle-train o' meat, 
Loped around to Kelly's place, singein' hot an' dry. 

This here chap was somethin' rare ; Henglish tweeds an' gloves, 
Stripey collar round his neck, sparks to throw away, 

He was givin' 'em a song, 'bout the town he loves. 

How they hit "the pace that kills," down on old Broadway. 

Heaved a wistful, weepy sigh 'twould make a bay steer groan 
When he told us what a spangled, rompin' time he'd had 

Christmas Eve a year ago, just before he'd blown 

Out into the "Woolly," where we don't know shrimps from 
shad. 

Claimed along 'bout three a. m. they found an apple girl 
Sleepin' in a doorway; stole her fruit to raise a fuss. 

Then they made her do a Midway Turkish dancin' whirl 

'Fore they'd pay the damage — an' he called that generous! 

Awful homesick yarn it was, 'Peared he couldn't find 

Nothin' in the whoopin' line warm enough out West. 

Made me sort o' weary, so, to ease my mind, 

I dug up a Christmas tale an' let him take a rest. 

Mind the Northwest homestead boom, twenty-odd years back, 
When Dakota stuck her nose above the waves o' fame? 

I was pottin"' coyotes from a Brule County shack, 

Burnin' hay an' eatin' pork an' holdin' down my claim. 

Not a strictly stirrin' life ; quite a lot less gay 

Than workin' in a grave-yard, a-plantin' of remains. 

Notion hit me Christmas time to take a holiday ; 

Roped the cayuse, strapped my guns, an' struck across the 
plains. 

54 



Prairie Songs 

Galloped into Kimball 'long 'bout milkin' time, 

Wind a-whoopin' from the North, cold as billy hell — 

Ever known a prairie town in its infant prime? 

Kimball was a corker an' I've seen some pretty swell. 

Just a bunch o' dry goods boxes dumped along a rise, 

Cracks plugged up with pitch an' tar, stove-pipes stickin" 
through, 

But, you bet, that little burg was sure enough the prize 
Fer stirrin' up a tinted time an' startin' it to brew. 

Thought I'd have a quiet night ; Lord, it wa'n't no use ! 

First bumped into Billy Stokes, up from Bijou Hills, 
We wandered into "Rancher's Rest," spang onto "Shorthorn" 
Bruce, 

Charlie Gates an' "Doc" Lemar, curin' of their chills. 

Well, that closed the "quiet" act; things was due to burn. 

Dabbled with the red-eye till the lamp-lights ringed an' 
soared. 
Then Lemar got wealthy an' thought he'd take a turn 

Spinnin' out his sinkers on the racy roulette board. 

Oh, the time was lovely (fer the man behind the wheel!) 

Stokes an' "Shorthorn" joined the game, just to try their luck, 

Charlie, landin' on the bar, started off a reel ; 

Then the banker "rolled the roll" — an' the blame thing stuck! 

"Fixed!" yells Bill an' "Shorthorn," whippin' out their pipes; 

Banker backed ag'in the wall, huntin' fer a crack. 
Air just pink with cuss-words, runnin' round in stripes. 

Doors an' winders full o' folks, none a-comin' back. . 

"Doc" was just a-prancin' round, gettin' things in range, 

So's to shoot the whole joint up without no undue pause, 

When we heerd a little voice, thin an' mighty strange, 

Pipin' up from somewheres, "Mister, is you Santa Claus?" 

55 



Frontier ballads 

Well, I swan, if that there shack had gathered up an' r'ared 
An' galloped off across the street, we'd not been more 
knocked out 

Than when we seen that little girl, blue-eyed an' curly-haired, 
A-standin' in the bar-room, half-way 'twixt a smile an' pout. 

Say, we ducked them guns o' ours underneath our hats 
'S if the Sheriff's deputies had just come jumpin' in. 

We sure was worse kerflummuxed than a lot o' sneakin' rats, 
Caught a-stealin' barley in some feller's stable-bin. 

That there little lady stood an' looked around a spell, 

Then she toddled to Lemar an' looked up in his eyes : 

"Oo's the big, long-whiskered man I'se heard my Mama tell, 
'At brings nice fings to everyone what's good an' never cries. 

"Mama's good; I'se tried to be" — her eyes began to fill — 

"But she says 'at Santa Claus can't come this Christmas Day. 

I don't see why: since Papa's in that still place on the hill 
She never gets no p'itty clo'es, nor me nice toys for play. 

"She told me, though, 'at Santa Claus was here in town to-night 
An' so I fought I'd dess slip out an' find him if I could 

An' see if he's dot sump'n left — I fought, perhaps, he might — 
An', mister, if you's Santy, tan we have it, if we's good?" 

I've seen "Doc" get ditched an' wrecked with forty cars o' steers 
An' take it like a mallard duck, paradin' in the rain; 

Never thought he'd learned to know there was such things as 
tears. 
Which shows it's hard to figger how a feller works his brain. 

He turned round an' raked his stakes from off that roulette board. 
An' the whiskey wasn't guilty for his huskiness o' voice: 

"Boys," says he, "I pass this deal right here an,' by the Lord, 
I blow my wad on somethin' else — you all kin take yer 
choice. 

56 



Prairie Songs 

"It's well enough to whoop things up an' get a gorgeous head 
But mighty wise to recolleck yer coin's just gone to grass. 

I'm a-goin' to take a whirl at Santy Claus, instead, 

Wish that toys was in my line, but maybe these'll pass." 

Every cent he skirmished, from his hat-band to his pants, 
Went into the apron that the little one held out ; 

Rest of us, we follered suit, scrappin' fer the chance. 

Then we took her to the door an' finished with a shout. 



But, before we let her go — shameful sort o' trick ! — 

Made her kiss us all good-night; "Doc" took his right slow. 

T just sucked my breath all in an' hustled through it quick ; 
Still, she didn't seem to mind ; guess she didn't know. 

"Now," says I, "my homesick friend" (to him on Halsted Street), 
"You're a painful sort o' sight, crackin' up Broadway. 

Kimball. Brule County, was an ace-high flush to beat 

An' I'd backed her to the limit fer a winner in the play. 

"But the beauty-spot on Kimball an' the boys that made her hum 
Was the fact that rye an' roulette didn't petrify their souls ; 

Simply tip 'em to the theory that yer luck was on the bum 

An' they'd cut the game instanter an' deliver up their rolls. 

"An' if I'd a wife an' children an' was billed fer Canaan's Strand 
I'd take a sight more pleasure in a-tumin' up my toes 

If I left 'em to the mercies o' that old Dakota land 

Than in your plug-hat city where the money-grubber grows." 



57 



Frontier ballads 




A LAMENT 



R 



AWHIDE" Smith's gone crazy. 

"Rawhide" was my pard. 
Used to be a daisy; 

Say, it's mighty hard! 



Down at Twin Buttes City 
"Rawhide" met a maid, 

Young an' slim an' pretty 
An' she turned his haid. 



We jest started dancin' 
FroHcsome an' gay — 

Hang the pay-day prancin' 
When it ends that way! 



58 



RAIRIE SONGS 

Say! that little creature 

Got him roped all right; 
First I knew, a preacher 

Had spliced 'em good an' tight. 

Now he's gone to farmin' 

Way off from the range. 
Says his place is charmin'; 

Lord, he's gettin' strange! 

No more pal to cheer me 

Ridin' herd at night; 
No more comrade near me, 

Game fer fun or fight. 

One coat did fer cover 

Cold nights when it stormed, 

But them nights is over; 

"Rawhide" Smith's reformed! 



59 



FRONTIER BALLADS 



D 



JESUS GARCIA 

OWN in Sonora's wide, white lands, 
Lost in the endless waste of sands. 
Lies, like a blot of gray and brown, 
Nacozari, a desert town. 
All day long through its narrow street 
Children play in the dust and heat, 
Naked of limb and dark of face. 
Lithe as fawns in their careless grace. 
Chattering shrill in a half-caste speech 
Far from the Spanish the school rooms teach. 

All day long by the doorways small 
Cut through the thick adobe wall, 
Or in the narrow belts of shade 
Here and there by the flat roofs made. 
Lounge the indolent, swarthy men, 
Moving sluggishly now and then 
Better to scan their dicing throws 
Under their low-tipped sombreros, 
But, for the most, content to lie 
Drowsing the listless hours by, 
Watching, each, as the thin, blue jet 
Curls from his drooping cigarette. 

All day long, from the dawn's first flush 
When the mass is said in the morning hush 
Till fall of eve, when the vesper's peal 
Calls the faithful again to kneel, 
Nothing rouses the quiet place, 
Lulled in the desert's hushed embrace. 
Save when out of the distance dim. 
Over the far horizon's rim, 
Sudden a purring whisper comes, 
Rising swift, like the throb of drums. 
And the iron track which stretches forth. 
Straight as a lance from south to north. 
Quivers and sings in the mighty strain 

60 



RAIRIE SONGS 

From the grinding wheels of a through-bound train 

Then, for a space, as the whistle screams, 

Nacozari awakes from dreams. 

Women and children, boys and men 

Stream to the station platform then, 

Eager to gaze from its long plank walk, 

With gesturing arms and rapid talk. 

At the huge machine like a comet hurled 

From the mystical zone of the outer world. 

Thus it was on one summer's day. 
While the land in its noontide slumber lay 
With never a living creature near 
Save a lizard, perhaps, by a cactus spear 
Basking himself in the fervid heat. 
Or, high aloft, like a pirate fleet, 
A flock of vultures on lazy wing 
Circling wide in a watchful ring, 
That into the street of the desert town 
A long, slow freight came rolling down. 
Laden with goods of Northern yield 
For Mexican mine and town and field. 

Rumbling in with failing speed 
It came to rest like a. tired steed. 
With the mogul engine's dusty flank 
Close by the massive water-tank. 
As if it longed, like a living thing, 
To quench its thirst at the cooling spring 
Of the thousand-foot artesian well. 
Sunk through the desert's crusted shell. 

Just as it stopped with a grinding jar 

Rattling back from car to car, 

Out of the engine-cab swung clear 

Jesus Garcia, the engineer. 

Sooted and grimed to his finger-tips 

But the lilt of a song on his smiling lips, 

For he was handsome and young and strong 

And love was the theme of his murmured song. 

61 



Frontier Ballads 

Slowly he passed his engine by 
Scanning its length with a practiced eye, 
Touching a polished slide-valve here. 
Or there, a shaft of the running-gear, 
Which done, he turned in a boyish mood 
To a group of children who, gaping, stood 
At the side of the track, too wonder-bound 
To move a limb or to make a sound. 
Into their midst Garcia sprung 
And a chubby lad to his shoulder swung. 
Who, laughing, clutched at his corded neck 
Like a sailor tossed on a rocking deck. 

Perhaps to the Mexican engineer 

The child suggested a vision dear 

Of a little boy of his very own 

In a white-washed cottage at Torreon, 

And the dark-eyed mother who, day by day. 

Told beads for her husband, far away. 

And watched, as the trains steamed forth and back, 

For his mogul engine along the track. 

But only a moment, with swinging feet. 
The baby perched on his lofty seat, 
For suddenly down by the cars in rear 
There rang a shriek of unbridled fear. 
Garcia turned, in amaze looked back; 
A score of men from the railroad track 
Were rushing away in a frantic race 
As if they had looked on a demon's face. 
And then, as he turned, the cause was plain 
For half-way back in the standing train 
A flame licked out from a box-car's side, 
Yellov^ and spiteful, a handbreadth wide. 

His cheek grew pale, but his lips still smiled 

As he slipped from his shoulder the startled child. 

Nor even forgot in his haste to place 

A good-bye kiss on the upturned face; 

Then he sprang to the street with a bound and gazed 

62 



R A I R I E SON 

Intent, at the spot where the fire blazed. 
Barely a glance was enough to tell 
It was a car which he knew full well — 
Shipped in bond by a fast freight line, 
Bound for a great Sonora mine — 
Filled to the roof and loaded tight 
With closed-tiered boxes of dynamite; 
Enough, if its deadly strength found vent. 
To rock the land like a billowed tent. 
Sweeping the town from the desert sand 
Clean as the palm of an opened hand. 

What did he do, the engineer, 
Face to face with this mortal fear? 
Turn, as the rest, to the desert wide, 
Mad with dread, for a place to hide, 
Leaving the town and its helpless folk 
Doomed to death at a single stroke? 
No ! Though only a peon born 
Heart like his might a king adorn ! 

Waving his arms to his frightened crew, 
Such as remained, a scattered few, 
Garcia uttered a warning shout — 
"Undile! Vamos!" ("Run! Get out!") 
Leaped to his engine waiting there. 
Opened the throttle, released the air. 
And started the jets for the sand to run 
On the glassy rails where the drivers spun. 
Till, biting the steel with a spurt of fire 
Sputtering back from each grinding tire. 
The monster conquered its straining load 
And, gathering speed on the curveless road. 
It rolled from the town and left it whole. 
Like death torn loose from a stricken soul. 

But looking backward with stern-set face. 
Throttle gripped in a firm embrace, 
Garcia goaded his panting steed 

63 



FRONTIER BALLADS 

Ever and ever to faster speed. 

Knowing still if the blow should fall 

It would shatter the village wall from wall. 

Now from the sides of the car behind. 

Fanned by its flight through the rushing wind, 

Burst the flames in a lashing sheet 

Peeling the paint with its fervid heat. 

Vomiting sparks like a fiery hail 

On the cars that rocked in its lurid trail. 

Still the mogul, in giant flight. 

Swaying drunkenly left and right, 

Strained to the race, while the rails it trod 

Thundered behind it, rod by rod ; 

Still in its cab, foredoomed, alone. 

Waiting death like a man of stone. 

Stood Garcia, his feet braced wide 

To the pitch and plunge of the engine's stride, 

With never a frown to show he knew 

Regret for the task he was there to do. 

Hardly a mile had his wild train fled 

Into the desert straight ahead. 

When a flare of light to his vision came 

As if the world were engulfed in flame. 

Perhaps it fell on his closing eyes 

Like the great, white light of Paradise; 

Perhaps, in the roar which smote him there, 

Too deep for a mortal ear to bear. 

He heard but the Heavenly trumpet-roll 

Blown clear to welcome a hero's soul. 

At least, if any have won to rest 

In the fair, green land of the ever blest 

By earning their right- therein to dwell, 

Jesus Garcia deserved it well. 

For in the blast that strewed his train, 

Torn in fragments, along the plain. 

Only his soul went forth to meet 

The final call at his Master's feet. 



64 



R A I R I E SON 

So it is that to-day, alone, 

In a white-washed cottage at Torreon, 

A brown-skinned woman with sad, dark eyes 

Looks on her child at his play, and sighs. 

Knowing well she will hark in vain 

For her husband's step at the door again. 

Or watch, as the trains steam back and forth, 

For his mogul engine out of the North. 

So it is that when evening falls, 

Draping the dull adobe walls 

Fold on fold in its tender mist, 

Purple and blue and amethyst, 

And Nacozari kneels down to pray 

At the vesper call from the chapel gray, 

Many an orison of love 

Is wafted up to the stars above 

For the peace of Jesus Garcia's soul ; 

He who had saved the village whole 

By the utmost gift which a man can give — 

Life, that his fellow men might live. 



65 



FRONTIER B A L L A D S 



D 



A CHRISTMAS LETTER 

EAR MISS: 

For this pink stationery 
Forgive me; it's all I could find 

In Buck Dalton's store at the Ferry, 
So I took it — I hope you won't mind. 

For it's Christmas good wishes I'm sending, 
Though in words not the best ever slung, 

To you, where the Tiber is wending. 

From me, on the banks of the Tongue. 

Perhaps you've forgotten the morning 

When your car of the Overland Mail 

Broke loose on a curve, without warning. 
And was ditched by the spread of a rail? 

I was herding near by in the valley. 

And I pulled out your father and you. 

And I found that your name. Miss, was Sallie, 
And — well, I remember. Do you? 

You were there for five hours at least. Miss, 
Then the whistle, a smile, a last word, 

And you rolled away to the East, Miss, 
While I galloped back to the herd. 

You. back to your world and its beauties. 
New York, Paris, Rome, and all those, 

I, back to a cowboy's rough duties 

In sunshine and rainstorm and snows. 

But to-night I'm alone in the shack here 

On my quarter-square Government claim. 

While coyotes are yelping out back here — 
You'd be scared. Miss, I guess, by the same. 



66 



R A I R I E SON 

The moonlight is white on the river, 

And the long, frozen miles of the plain 

Seem to shrink in the north wind and shiver 
And wish it was summer again. 

It's different where you are, I reckon. 

Leastways from the books it must be. 

Where the green hills of Italy beckon 

And the Tiber sings down to the sea; 

Where the red roses always are climbing 
And the air smells of olives and pines, 

And at evening the vesper bells' chiming 
Floats up toward the far Apennines. 

You like it, no doubt, and you'd never 
See beauties that nature can hold 

Where the snow lies in drifts on the river 
And the prairies are empty and cold. 

But somehow I wouldn't forego it 

For all of those soft, southern lands. 

I breathe it and feel it and know it; 
It grips me as if it had hands. 

The stars in the night, how they glisten! 

The plains in the day, how they spread! 
There's room, to stand up in, and listen. 

And know there's a God overhead. 

And then, when the summer is coming 

And the cattle start out on the trails, 

And you hearken at dawn to the drumming 
Of prairie-hens down in the swales, 

Why, Italy simply ain't in it ! — 

But, Miss, here I'm talking too free. 

Excuse me ; my thoughts for a minute 
Got sort of the better of me. 



67 



Frontier ballads 



It was just about Christmas I started; 

To me, it was only a name 
Till that day when we met, talked and parted, 

But since it has not been the same. 

For you gave me a new kind of notion 
Of the countries and people and such 

On the trails that lie over the ocean — 
I guess we don't differ so much. 

And Christmas is chuck full of spirit 
That everywhere under the sun 

Warms up anyone who comes near it 

And fills them with good-will and fun. 

So I want you to know from this letter 

That the time by the train wreck with you 

Made me know all humanity better 

And like the whole bunch better, too. 

And I hope, if it seems like presuming 
That a letter shall come to your door 

In the land where the roses are blooming 
From me, on the Tongue's icy shore, 

You'll forgive, Miss, an uncultured party 
In the spirit of Christmas, and take 

These thanks and good wishes, all hearty, 
From 

Your most sincere 

CHEYENNE JAKE. 



68 



fW 



R A I R I E Son 



THE COYOTEVILLE PEACE MEETING 

E held a peace convention in Coyoteville last night, 
A reg'Iar Haygue Tribunal fer order, law, an' right, 
Far we'd about concluded that fightin' come too free 
An' municipal conditions wasn't all they ought to be. 

"Dad" Sykes had been to Denver an' Blake to Omaha, 
An' they come back a-preachin' of the sights which they had saw, 
How no one carried weepons an' folks was nice an' mild. 
An', compared with them there cities, Coyoteville was wild. 

In Coyoteville the habit of some gentlemen at nights, 

If they felt in pleasant spirits, was to puncture out the lights. 

Also, in questions dealin' with a social poker game 

They was prone to draw their irons an' argue with the same. 

All which, from "Dad" Sykes' view-point, an' likewise Mister 

Blake's, 
Was morally pervertin' an' the biggest of mistakes, 
Since Coyoteville's best people had begun a-takin' pride 
In makin' her the model of the cattle-countryside. 

Therefore, we held a meetin' in the Frou-Frou Dancin' Hall; 
"Dad" Sykes he played first fiddle an' Blake was there to call — 
I mean that Sykes persided an' Billy v.'rote it down 
When motions was perpounded on how to run the town. 

"Bat" Blarcum broached the idee, supported by a speech, 

That the closin' of the thirst-joints was the only thing would 

reach. 
Since liquor bred dissension which only blood could stop 
As he knew from observation, though he "never touched a drop!" 

Then Pierpont Robyn Stebbins arose an' begged to say 
That the road to civic virtue lay quite another way ; 
To punish weepon toters would be the proper feat — 
Jest confiscate their weepons an' make 'em clean the street. 

But Bobby Earl was doubtful of Pierpont Robyn's plan; 
He thought that cleaning roadways would humiliate a man. 

69 



Frontier Ballads 

"Bat" Blarcum felt as Earl did, an' inferred that Stebbins' scheme 
Was degenerate an' Eastern an' an iridescent dream. 

Then Pierpont stood up coldly an' stated to the Chair 
That Mister Earl's opinions would be weighty anywhere, 
Therefore he meekly yielded, lest he be crushed indeed 
By the most substantial leader of the law an' order creed. 

Now Bobby weighed three hundred an' it somewhat nettled him 
To be ridiculed in public there by Stebbins, who was slim. 
But the Chairman wouldn't hear him till Pierpont's partner, 

Drew, 
Had made some observations about "Bat" Blarcum, too. 

Which last, he said he hated to cast aspersions 'round. 
But he felt "Bat's" plan of action was very far from sound. 
An' he questioned these reformers whose reform was brought 

about 
Through a hate for rum engendered by the Keeley curin' route. 

He finished ; whereat Bobby raised objections an' was pained 
At the style of Stebbins' language — an' Bobby was sustained. 
Then Stebbins said the Chairman might be strong an' somethin' 

more. 
But he dared not try sustainin' Mister Earl down on the floor! 

By this time indications made it plain to persons there 
That a spirit of contention was a-breedin' in the air, 
Fer Drew jumped through a window as Blarcum slowly rose. 
While Bobby Earl was aimin' fer Pierpont Stebbins' nose. 

The other folks concluded it was gettin' time they went, 
An' started fer the doorways by unanimous consent. 
While the Chair came down on Stebbins regardless of the law. 
An' Blake propelled the Minutes at Mister Blarcum's jaw. 

There'll be a bunch of fun'rals in Coyoteville today: 
Some well-known ex-reformers in the leadin' parts will play; 
An' Coyoteville's considerin' this lesson o'er an' o'er, 
That peace may have its battles as well, sometimes, as war, 

70 



Prairie 



SONG 




F 



THE SONG OF THE WINCHESTER 

ULL heir to the twist-bored yager gun with its half-inch slug, I 
stand; 

His rest was the Forty-niner's arm, as mine is the sportsman's 
hand. 

I am king of my day as he of his, from the swamp to the saw- 
backed spur, 

And there's never a trail but has heard the hail of the ringing 
Winchester! 



I've saved the leaguered wagon-train from the scalping-knife 

and stake; 
I have held the lead through the blind stampede in the bison's 

dust-dimmed wake; 



71 



FRONTIER Ballads 



By the reeking dives of the placer camp I have killed for a care- 
less jest, 

And I've raped the loot from the stage-coach boot at the bandit's 
stern behest. 



Away in the dusk of the Arctic night, where the frozen rivers 

flow 
And the fringed aurora floods and fades on the endless fields of 

snow. 
The hardy hunters trust my sights and my spinning bullet's speed 
When they seek the lair of the great white bear or the haunt of 

the gray wolf's breed. 

The steaming glades of the Amazon, where the crouching jaguar 
springs. 

Have felt the breath of the whirring death my long-necked cart- 
ridge brings, 

And the wind-whipped crests where the condor nests on the roof- 
ribs of the world 

Have marked the thin, blue jet of smoke from my flashing muzzle 
hurled. 



Oh, I am the mate of the deep-lunged men, stout son of a martial 
line, 

From Uruguay to the Kootenay, from mangrove-reef to pine ; 

In the throbbing glare of the desert air, by the rocks where the 
rapids purr. 

There is never a gun for fight or fun like the steel-blue Win- 
chester ! 



72 



RAIRIE SONG 



O 



PRAIRIE FIRE 

VER the lonely prairie 
The autumn twilight dies; 
Quick, fitful winds through the hollows pass 
That moan and sigh in the long, dry grass, 

And ever a kildee cries. 
The hovering darkness gathers; 

But what is the rose tint there, 
That flushes the far horizon 

Like a turbulent city's glare? 

It gathers and grows and widens, 

It swallows the southward sky 
And the timid wind, like a hunted deer. 
Makes pause to hearken, then leaps in fear 

And wails as it hurries by. 
The heavens glow red to the zenith 

In the ominous, fevered light, 
And the glimmering hilltops waver. 

Sharp-drawn on the walls of night. 

And now, as a wide-flung army. 

Hurled hot on the foemen's spears, 
With plumes of smoke on its tossing head, 
With flaring banners and lances red. 

The wavering flood appears. 
It runs like a wolf in hunger, 

It roars like a mountain storm, 
And before it the fleeing creatures 

Far Over the prairie swarm. 

Pigeon and grouse and plover, 

The air is alive with wings. 
And the firm ground shakes with the pounding feet 
Of bellowing bison in mad retreat 

And the panic of smaller things. 
Behind them the flames speed onward 

O'er level and slope and swale, 
And the grass is melted to embers. 

Whirled high on the parching gale. 

73 



Frontier Ballads 

As strong as the ocean's billows, 

As fierce as the blizzard's breath, 
Is aught in Nature that may withstand 
The league-long sweep of this scorching brand 

That clutters the plains with death? 
Ahead is a waiting darkness, 

A shadow athwart the glare. 
And the wild things have turned them to it, 

For they know there is safety there. 

The river, at last, the river! 

A haven where all may hide. 
With toil-spent lungs and with straining feet 
They reel from the smoke and the peeling heat 

To plunge in its grateful tide. 
While the tongue of the hungry demon 

Licks out on the naked sand. 
And slavers its baffled fury 

And sinks, like a dying hand. 

Over the lonely prairie 

So wan, the white moonrise grows ; 
From out of the North a chill wind rides 
That spins the ash on the black hillsides 

And, fading, an ember glows. 
The clustered diamonds of midnight 

Flash keen in the purple deep. 
The hollows and hills are empty; 

The desolate prairies sleep. 



74 



Ill 
RIVER SONGS 



Ill 

RIVER SONGS 

THE MISSOURI 

WHEN the hollow void of Chaos 
By the sun's first flame was lit, 
And morning kissed the new earth's leaden sky. 
When the hand of God reached downward 
To the ocean's utmost pit 
And reared the ragged continents on high. 

From the naked, dripping ranges 

Of the Rocky's granite sweep. 
In a pathway through the quaking mud-plains torn. 

Surged a waste of briny waters, 

Roaring backward to the deep, 
And the great Missouri, king of floods, was born. 

It was there when, dank and noisome, 

On the primal beds of shale 
The fern and cycad forests fringed its shore, 

And its depths have heaved in whirlpools 

To the thresh of fin and tail 
As the monster sea-snakes closed in deadly war. 

Foot by foot through crumbling valleys 

It has fought the Glacial Drift 
As from out the North the rock-fanged moraines spread, 

Hurling seas of thunderous waters 

Through the slowly strangling rift 
Where the ice-floes ground and gritted in its bed. 

77 



FRONTIER Ballads 

Huge of limb and tusked like tree-trunks, 

When the evening sun hung low 
Slugged the mammoths down to gambol in its tide. 

And 'twas there that, ringed and goaded 

By the cave-men's spears and bows. 
They fell in blinded agony and died. 

So, for dim, uncounted aeons 

Did the torrent sweep along. 
Rolling centuries like pebbles in its sands. 

And the prairies sprung and blossomed 

And the bison herds grew strong, 
And the red men camped and hunted through its lands. 

Till there came at last a season 

When a gaunt-limbed figure burst 
Through the woods that lipped the current's whirling foam, 

And the flint-lock that he shifted 

As he stooped to quench his thirst 
Told the wilderness the first white man was come ! 

He, the white man, the magician. 

Searcher, soldier, settler, lord. 
Heir to all the crusted cycles of the past! 

What were endless, lagging eras 

While earth's wealth was being stored 
To the pageant of his power at the last? 

Came new visions to the river; 

Came the voyageur's swift canoe. 
Gliding ghost-like to the silent, dipping oar; 

And the blunt-bowed keel-boat harnessed 

To its brawny, sweating crew. 
As they trailed the long cordelle-rope up the shore. 

Came the block-house of the fur-trade, 

Where the trappers brought their spoil 
From bison-range and log-laced beaver fall; 

French and half-breed, Sioux and Yankee, 

Flinging out a season's toil 
For a week of drunken revelry and brawl. 

78 



RIVER SONGS 

Up the swinging, bluff-bound reaches 

Where the lonely bittern boomed 
Throbbed a dull, insistent whisper, growing strong, 

As the steamboat, flame-winged herald 

To an age forespent and doomed. 
Waked the woodlands with its piston's pulsing song. 

Reeling down the rain-washed gullies 

To its fertile, grassy vales 
The Missouri saw the weary ox-teams plod; 

Saw the red scouts on the ridges, 

Heard the shots and dying wails. 
Knew the unmarked graves beneath the prairie sod. 

It has watched the thm, gray dust-cloud 

With the summer heat-haze blent, 
And the glint below of swords and bridle-chains. 

As some squad of blue-clad troopers. 

Like a wolf-pack on the scent, 
Trailed the fleeing travois' track across the plains. 

It has seen the long-horned cattle 

Take the bisons' pasture lands, 
Seen the cornfields spread where once the wild grass stood, 

Marked the railroad bind the prairies. 

League by league, with iron bands. 
Felt the dizzy bridge-span leap its own dark flood. 

Till the cow-town's rutted roadways 

Into asphalt pavements grew. 
By wires webbed and busy markets walled, 

And the steel-trussed office building 

Reared its cornice to the blue 
Where the shanties of the mining camp had sprawled. 

Now the hissing, rock-jammed rapids 

Where of yore the fish-hawks bred. 
Hear the thirsty turbines mumble in the gorge. 

Tearing twice ten thousand horse-power 

From the prisoned waters' head 
To drive the distant smelter, mill and forge. 

79 



FRONTIER BALLADS 



Now lakes of water ripple 

Where before the sands lay dry, 
And beyond the concrete walls which hold them caged- 

Run shimmering, silver channels 

Through fields of wheat and rye 
Where yesterday the searing sand-storm raged. 

But splendid though the epic 

Of the river's wondrous past 
As Homer e'er could sing or Milton pen, 

It will know its grandest numbers 

In the ages yet uncast 
When its worth shall yield full measure unto men. 

In this storehouse of the Nations, 

Where but thousands prosper now, 
The homes of teeming millions soon shall be; 

On this noble waste of waters. 

Untouched by steamer's prow. 
Shall roll a people's commerce toward the sea. 

Unto us and to our children 

Will be dealt the untold gains 
If, shaping Nature's promise into deeds, 

We accept the willing service 

Of this Titan of the plains 
And compel its mighty muscles to our needs, 

Till its flood runs deep and constant 

To the Mississippi's tide. 
And the wedded torrents down the South are hurled. 

Pouring forth their fleets of plenty 

O'er oceans far and wide 
To bear our country's riches to the world. 



80 



R 



V 



E R 



O 



N 



G 




THE OLD CARRY 



(Near the mouth of the Missouri River is a narrow tongue of land 
between that stream and the Mississippi over which the Sioux Indians, 
on their expeditions in early days, were accustomed to transport their 
goods and boats in order to avoid the long journey around the point by 
water. Hence the locality received its name, Portage des Sioux.) 



R 



OUND by tawny, foam-lipp'd streams, 

Portage des Sioux, 
In thy name what romance dreams, 

Portage des Sioux ! 
But thy trails, once deep and worn, 
Now lie gulfed in rustling corn, 
And thy forest depths are shorn, 

Portage des Sioux, 

81 



FRONTIER Ballads 

Where are all the dusky feet, 

Portage des Sioux, 
Trod thy pathways like a street, 

Portage des Sioux? 
Nevermore thy vales shall know 
Flash of spear and twang of bow, 
Nor the evening camp-fire's glow, 

Portage des Sioux. 

Yet when summer moonlight falls. 

Portage des Sioux, 
On thy glades and forest walls, 

Portage des Sioux, 
Phantom figures seem to go 
'Neath the branches bending low, 
Moccasined and pacing slow, 

Portagfe des Sioux. 



And the hoot-owl's mournful rune, 

Portage des Sioux, 
Quavers toward the sailing moon, 

Portage des Sioux, 
While, where shore and river meet. 
Sob the waves with pulsing feet 
Like a tom-tom's dying beat, 

Portage des Sioux. 



82 



RIVER SONG 



W 



JAKE DALE 

HAT, stranger, you never heerd tell o' Jake, 
Jake Dale, o' the "Lucky George"? 
You must 'a' been raised in the East, my son. 
If you never clapped ears to the yarn that's spun 
Of Jakey Dale an' the race he won 
In the year o' the big ice gorge. 



Come March in the Spring o' '8i, 

An' the river broke at Pierre 
An' come rantin' down on the clean rampage. 
She marked 36 on the Yankton gauge, 
Which I reckon you know is some of a stage, 

An' she covered the bottoms here. 



The "George" was hitched on the city bar 

Close up by the railroad track. 
When the row began we fixed her strong, 
Rigged seven hawsers where two belong; 
She'd 'a' taken an acre o' soil along 

If she'd dragged in the grindin' pack. 

But along one night the drift-ice stopped ; 

The fiood run clear as June, 
Fer the stuff had jammed in Hagin's Bend 
An' choked the channel from end to end, 
An' it fought an' screamed like a wild-cat, penned, 

In the light o' the cold March moon. 



Yeh see that p'int acrost the bar 

With the riffle o' shoal below? 
Well, that's where the widow o' old Buck Slack 
Oncet had a claim an' a drift-wood shack. 
Where she lived an' slaved with her young-un pack. 

All which was some time ago. 



83 



Frontier ballads 

Well, we on the "George" had tumbled out — 

The roar o' the jam was wild — 
When we heerd a cry through the shriekin' night, 
An' there on the p'int, in the pale moonlight, 
A-wavin' an' yellin' with all her might, 

Stood Buck Slack's youngest child. 

An' we knowed, without darin' to say the word, 
They was tripped fer the Great Unknown, 

Fer the gorge had slapped the current round 

An' cut 'em off from the higher ground. 

An' the hand that could save 'em from bein' drowned 
Was the hand of God alone. 

Then all at oncet we heerd a yell 

An', down 'cross the willow bank, 
A-layin' a course that was skeercely snug, 
Came Jakey Dale with his whiskey jug. 
As drunk as the mate of a log-raft tug, 

An' a-swearin' somethin' rank. 

"You rust-chawed fragments o' junk," sez he, 
"Now what do you think you've found? 

A-standin' 'round on this old bilge tank 

Like a bunch o' frogs on a fioatin' plank ; 

Be ye lookin' fer gold in yon cut-bank?" 
An' then he heerd that sound. 

As quick as the jump of a piston-rod 

He was over the wheel-box guard. 
An' before we could figger on stoppin' him 
He had slashed the falls from the long-boat's rim 
An' was out past the slush o' the channel's brim, 

A-pullin' quick an' hard. 

He sidled his tub through that rippin' flume 

While we stood on the "George" an' swore. 
The boy was loony with raw-corn gin, 
But he reckoned his course to the width of a pin, 
Ran straight to the eddy an' clawed her in. 
An' staggered himself ashore. 

84 



RIVER SONG 

Now, stranger, I want to ask you, flat, 
If a man with his head-piece right, 
Would 'a' piled eight folks in that skiff's inside 
Fer a half-mile pull through that mill-race tide 
An' think to land safe at the end o' the ride? 
Well, Jake Dale did, that night. 

When he shoved her off from the gumbo p'int 

She reeled like a sawyer snag. 
Then the current caught her along the beam 
An' she whirled around an' shot down stream 
With the foam from her bow like a cloud o' steam. 

As fast as a red-tail stag. 

Good Lord, the fright in them children's cries ! 

It curdled a feller's blood, 
Them river men ain't a prayerful race, 
But that night more'n one sort o' hid his face 
An' sent up a plea to the Throne o' Grace 

To guide them through the flood. 

An' then that gorge sent up a roar 

That shook the solid ground; 
The sort that splits yer ears in two 
When a side-wheel packet drops a flue 
An' blows six b'ilers amongst her crew. 

An' cooks them that ain't drowned. 

She was breakin' loose like an avalanche. 

Slipped free on a mountain side. 
Jake Dale turned 'round an' give one look 
An' read the truth like a printed book, 
Then bent to his oars till the keel-post shook, 
An' pulled fer the "George's" side. 

He jammed her bow through the buckin' tide 

Till the painter floated free; 
With blinded eyes an' drippin' skin 
He fought fer the race he had set to win 
Like a soldier fights, till the ice rolled in 

An' ground against her lee. 

85 



Frontier ballads 

But he'd got her up to ropin' range 

An' we hauled her to the rail. 
When he'd landed the last one, safe an' sound, 
Jake follered, an' says, as he looked around, 
"You fellers fetch out that jug you found, 

I'm as dry as the Mormon Trail!" 

Well, stranger, that there is the yarn o' Jake, 

Jake Dale, o' the "Lucky George," 
He wasn't no saint with a gilt-edged crown ; 
His language would shatter a church-steeple down; 
He'd a thirst in his throat that nothin' could drown, 

An' a fist like a blacksmith's forge. 

But, all the same, he'd a Christian soul 

If he hadn't the Christian creed. 
An' a better heart, by a blame long shot. 
Than some pious folks that brag a lot 
On savin' their souls, but haven't got 

No time fer their brother's need. 

An' I reckon the Lord has found a place 

In the Kingdom, o' the Lamb 
Fer the man that cast his own fears by 
An' showed that he wasn't afeared to die 
Fer the sake of a frightened baby's cry. 

That night o' the big ice jam. 



86 



RIVER SONG 



THE ENGINEER OF THE "GOLDEN HIND" 

^LIM JACK" BRITT, of the packet "Golden Hind," 
J Runnin' the Missouri 'fore the railroads spoiled the trade, 

Engineer, and a good one of his kind, 

Claimed to have no feelin's; 'twas the only brag he made. 

Come what might, he didn't give a hang; 

Watch a Levee shootin' scrape and never turn a hair. 
Stand and chew while some other boat went bang! 

And blew her decks and b'ilers half a mile up in the air. 

News of death didn't bother him, 

Never showed no feelin's by word or sigh or frown. 
Gabr'el's Trump wouldn't worried Slim, 

He'd just hump his shoulders and screw a steam-valve down. 

Well, one day, out from Omaha, 

Way late in November and makin' our last run, 
Blizzard come, quick and thick and raw. 

Slim was at the engines when the storm begun. 

Boat chuck full, passengers and freight. 

Had to get 'em somewhere 'fore the freeze-up brought us to, 
So we run, crowdin' on the gait 

And hopin' that a blind snag wouldn't rip our bottom through. 

All at once a woman screamed aloud — 

"Men, the boat's on fire ! For God's sake, run ashore !" 
Then, of course, panic in the crowd. 

Shrieks and groans and curses and the fire's growin' roar. 

Down below, 'round the fires there 

Crew all took the fever, run up front and prayed — 
All but Slim. He didn't seem to care; 

Didn't have no feelin's and so he stayed. 

87 



Frontier ballads 

Pilot yelled through the speakin' tube, — 

"Can you keep the paddles goin' while I make a landin', 
Jack?" 
"Blamed hot here, but I'll mind yer signals, Rube; 

I ain't got no feelin's," was all Slim hollered back. 

Through the roof, down the fire came 

While ne worked his levers, blisterin' like tar, 

Blind and black, stickin' to the game 

Till she'd made her landin', broad against the bar. 

Someone then jumped across the side. 

Dragged him from the fire and toted him ashore. 

Might as well just have let it slide; 

Slim was done with engines for good and evermore. 

But he spoke, just 'fore he got through, 

Lookin' at the people in a .sort o' mild surprise — 

"Don't thank me, and don't be sorry, too — 

I ain't got no feelin's," said Slim, and closed his eyes. 



88 



RIVE 



R 



O N 




A 



THE "PAULINE" 

MISSOURI tramp was the boat "Pauline" 

An' she ran in '78; 
She was warped in the hull an' broad o' beam, 
An' her engines sizzled with wastin' steam. 
An' a three-mile jog against the stream 

Was her average runnin' gait. 
Sing ho! fer the rickety "Pauline" maid, 
The rottenest raft in the Bismarck trade, 

An' her captain an' her mate. 

The new "North Queen" come up in June, 

Fresh launched from the Saint Joe ways, 
As speedy a craft as the river'd float — 
She could buck the bends like a big-horn goat — 
An' she hauled astern o' that "Pauline" boat 

On one o' them nice spring days. 
Sing ho! fer the "Pauline," puffin' hard. 
With her captain up on the starboard guard, 
A-watchin' the "North Queen" raise. 

89 



Frontier ballads 

The "Queen," she drew to the "Pauline's" wheel 

An' her captain come a-bow ; 
"I'll give yeh three miles the lead," says he, 
"An' beat yeh at that into Old Santee." 
"Come on," says the "Pauline's" chief, "an' see! 

I'm a-waitin' fer yeh now." 
Sing ho ! fer the captains, grim an' white 
With the smothered hate of an old-time fight 

An' the chance fer a new-time row. 

So the sassy "Queen" strung out behind 

An' let the distance spread. 
Till the "Pauline" headed Ackley's Bend 
An' herself come in at the lower end ; 
Then her slow-bell speed begun to mend 

Fer the space that the old boat led. 
Sing ho ! fer the clerks an' the engineers 
A-swabbin' the grease on the runnin' gears 

An' settin' the stroke ahead. 

Puff-puff! they went by the flat sand-bars, 

Chug-chug! where the currents spun. 
An' the "Pauline's" stokers were not to blame 
Fer her tall, black stacks were spoutin' flame. 
But the "Queen" crawled up on her, just the same, 

Two miles to the "Pauline's" one. 
Sing ho! fer the steam-chest's poundin' cough, 
A-shakin' the nuts o' the guy-rods off 

To the beat o' the piston's run. 

The "Queen" pulled up on the old boat's beam 

At the mouth o' Chouteau Creek, 
An' the "Pauline's" captain stamped an' swore, 
Fer the wood bulged out o' the furnace door, 
An' the steam-gauge hissed with the load it bore. 

But she couldn't do the trick. 
Sing ho! fer the pilot at the wheel 
A-shavin' the ?hoals on a twelve-inch keel. 
Enough to scare yeh sick. 

90 



RIVER SONG 

The "Queen" was doin' her level best 
An' she wasn't leadin' far — 
Fer the "Pauline" stuck like a barber's leech — 
But she let her siren whistle screech 
When she led the way into Dodson's Reach, 

Three miles from Santee Bar. 
Sing ho! fer the "Pauline's" roustabout 
A-rollin' the Bismarck cargo out, 

Big barrels o' black pine tar. 

The "Pauline's" chief was a sight to see 

As he stood on the swingin' stage. 
"I'll beat that pop-eyed levee-rat 
If he banks his fires with bacon fat; 
Pile in that tar an' let her scat 

An' never mind the gauge !" 
Sing ho! fer the boilers singein' red 
An' the 'olack smoke vomitin' overhead 
From the furnace' flamin' rage. 

An' she gained, that rattle-trap mud-scow did, 
While her wake got white with spray. 
An' forty rods from the landin'-plank 
Her bow was a-beam o' the "North Queen's" flank 
An' her pilot rushin' her fer the bank 

To block the "North Queen's" way. 
Sing ho! fer the boilers' burstin' roar 
As they hurl them loose from the splittin' floor, 
An' tear the decks away. 

But the captain bold of the ex-"Pauline," 

He didn't stop a bit, 
Fer he flew with the wreckage through the air 
An' fell on the landin', fair an' square, 
An' the "Queen" run in an' found him there, 

R'ared up from where he'd lit. 
An' he yelled: "You rouster, I've won the race! 
Go git a boat that can keep my pace, 

Yer 'North Queen' doesn't fit!" 



91 



FRONTIER Ballads 



T 



AFTERGLOW 
(On the Missouri) 

WILIGHT on the river, summer everywhere, 
Prairie flovv^ers perfuming the warm June air, 
Breezes stirring softly on the high bluff's crest 
Where stand a lad and maiden, looking toward the West. 

Just a lad and maiden, standing, hand in hand, 
While the lights are fading from the sunset's fairyland, 
While on butte and buttress dies the crimson afterglow 
And the mists creep upward from the river far below. 

Down there in the valley house lights twinkle out. 
Homeward-wending cattle low, laughing children shout, 
While those two stand dreaming of another home to be, 
Close beside the river, slipping swiftly toward the sea. 

O, thou broad, strong river, rolling from the North, 
Dost thou, too, see visions, from the centuries spun forth? 
See a lad and maiden in some summer long ago 
Gazing from the hilltop on the shadowed vale below? 

Dusky, slender lovers, clasping hand in hand 
While the tepee lires flicker down there on the strand — 
Wild, unccnquered children of the forest and the plain, 
Dreaming, softly dreaming that same old dream again! 

River of the Northland, in thy banks of living green. 
Many are the visions that thy changing tides have seen, 
Yet they came and vanished with Time's ceaseless onward flow. 
Grew and bloomed and faded like the sunset's afterglow. 

Only this was changeless in the centuries agone. 

Only this will change not as the countless years speed on; 

Ever to the hilltop, looking westward o'er the land 

Will come some lad and maiden, dreaming, hand in hand; 

In the twilight dreaming of a happy home to be 
Beside thy restless waters, sweeping silent toward the sea, 
Ever in the gloaming while time shall ebb and flow 
Love will build its castles in the crimson afterglow. 

92 




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BINDERY INC. 



^^ DEC 88 



Wa;^ N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 





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